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[KevinKorell]

Here is a report about what we did as a group on Sunday, 4/23.... including the return trip from Maine to Boston, and our travels within the Boston area afterwards.

[KevinKorell]

Sunday was an early day, and a long day.   The six of us in Freeport left the hotel at 7 AM and went to the Downeaster platform.   Although the train was displayed on a monitor as being 3 minutes late, it arrived and departed with us on board on time for our journey to beautiful Exeter, New Hampshire.

 

This train was not as crowded as our northbound trip the day before.   We did have a slight delay going through Old Orchard Beach -- not at the station (whose seasonal station stop has not yet started for 2023), but at the grade crossing for Old Orchard Street, the main drag where all the food stands and entertainment are located.  Given where we stopped my thought was a problem with the crossing.

 

The weather was as predicted, which was not too good.  While we had dodged any rain bullets on Saturday, we finally caught up with the rain during our southbound Downeaster trip on Sunday.   By the time we got to Exeter it was a steady rain, which of course was poorly timed in that everyone had to detrain and then both store their luggage under one of the buses and then wait on line to board.     Umbrellas would be welcome but they were stashed in that baggage going into the bus compartment.

 

The substitute bus ride took a little over one hour, including the straight run on I-95 and then the curvy but fast run on US 1 into Boston.   Our group members were aboard different buses but we all met again at North Station at one point or another.  Most went on their own for an early lunch.  Steve W met us again making us a group of 7 for the Wachusett round trip.  Many places were available at that early hour in the station's Hub Hall.

 

Next came our ride out to Wachusett on the Fitchburg Line, which was extended to the former from the latter about 5 years ago.   For some, the entire trip of 1 hour 40 minutes was new trackage,   For me, having done a Fest including Fitchburg in 2008, only the portion beyond there was new.  Hard to believe that was 15 years ago!  Our outbound train left Boston North Station on time.  We found that most stations are listed in the timetable as flag stops, and yet the trains seemed to stop at almost every one of them.   , and got to Wachusett only a minute late.  After passengers detrained, the train went onwards to a yard around a curve and out of sight.  Once we were there, it was raining hard.    Some ventured away from the station, aware we only had a little more than half an hour dwell, while the rest stood under an effective station canopy which kept us dry (but it was cold nevertheless!).

 

The same consist re-appeared around the bend and we were able to board.  Same train but different crew.  We headed inbound leaving Wachusett on time at 2 PM.   Plenty of passengers boarded this trip on the way to Boston, and by the time we arrived at North Station we were 3 minutes late.

 

And that ended the commuter rail portion of our Fest.   Due to the Red Line outage of the previous day, we had not yet been on rapid transit as a group, but that was about to change.    Lou and Ellis had taken the Green Line Extension earlier in their stay in Boston since their hotel was adjacent to the Lechmere station.  They opted out of the remainder of our day, and headed to South Station to board separate Amtrak trains home.   That left 5 of us to ride the two new Green Line Extension branches.   We took the E trolley (the longer of the two branches) first to Medford/Tufts.   There, Steve W left us to take Uber to the airport for his flight home to Chicago.  Remaining were Ted, Steve M, Chris, and myself.  The four of us rode back on an E trolley to Lechmere, and then after a rather long wait for the next D trolley (having just missed one), we took the shorter branch to Union Square in Somerville.   At that station it was a very short turnaround (3 minutes), and at 5:03 PM we were departing on the last official conveyance of the Fest.   Ted remained on to Government Center, after three of us got off the D trolley at Haymarket.   Chris and Steve M would then move on from Boston, while I went to my hotel in Boston where I write this now.

 

With the main weekend Fest officially over, and the Monday Foxboro option not being exercised, this event will join all the other successful Fests in our long history.

Edited by KevinKorell, 25 April 2023 - 04:37 PM.
Minor edits to correct late night mistakes